


A Cunning Plan

by skyblue_reverie



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Cliche, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Pining, Pining!John, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Trope Bingo Amnesty, Trope Bingo Round 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28030998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue_reverie/pseuds/skyblue_reverie
Summary: In which John has a cunning plan (hint: it involves getting Rodney to snuggle with him for "warmth"). Unabashed cliche-fest!
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 14
Kudos: 77
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fifteen





	A Cunning Plan

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to prismabird and ivorysilk for alpha reading and hand-holding. All errors, sappiness, and cringeworthiness entirely my own.
> 
> Posted during the Amnesty period for [DW's Trope Bingo Round 15.](https://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org)

John didn’t engineer things on their overnight missions so that Teyla would be with Ronon and he’d be with Rodney. Really, he didn’t, Teyla’s knowing looks and Ronon’s smirks notwithstanding. It just happened to work out that way. Luckily Rodney was cheerfully oblivious so even though John totally _wasn’t_ engineering it, Rodney didn’t even suspect that that _might_ be the reason. Not that it was. Well, maybe a little.

Rodney bitched and moaned every time they had to sleep offworld. The lack of his prescription mattress was usually complaint number one, followed closely by complaints about the heat or cold, humidity or dryness, lack of modern sanitary facilities, abundance of insects and/or pollen, and John’s snoring, which was totally unfair because John did _not_ snore. He’d set his tablet to record all noises overnight when he went to sleep one night just so he could be sure. Sure, he breathed kind of loud, but he didn’t _snore_.

Tonight they were staying on the Planet of the Kids (it had an official name and alphanumerical designation, but that’s what everyone in Atlantis called it). This gave Rodney something additional to complain about: having to climb a rope ladder into a treehouse far above the forest floor. John personally thought it was kind of cool, pretty much a childhood fantasy come to life, to live in a treehouse city, but he wasn’t going to expose himself to Rodney’s ridicule by saying so.

Anyway, they had a treehouse to themselves, an empty one set aside for guests, and Ronon and Teyla were in another one, somewhere else in the settlement. It was evening, getting chilly now, and with how high they were off the ground, the wind whistled through the leaves and took any body heat with it. There was a fairly comfy mattress on the floor, and one blanket, which they were going to have to share. And share cozily, if they wanted to be at all warm.

John stripped to his t-shirt and boxers and surreptitiously watched while Rodney did the same, grumbling about the wind and the lumpy mattress and whatever else he could come up with to complain about. If they hadn’t been on a planet that they were absolutely sure was safe, he would’ve left his uniform on, but the Planet of the Kids was as safe as it got in the Pegasus galaxy, up in the trees away from any animal predators, and sheltered from Wraith beneath the electromagnetic shield that Rodney had spent the day fiddling with, to make it even larger with less power use.

John managed to get undressed first, so he flopped onto the middle of the mattress and pulled the one blanket over himself while Rodney was still fighting with his uniform shirt, which he’d somehow managed to get tangled in, his arms above his head and the shirt covering his face. Rodney was flailing and cursing, but John didn’t even mock him, instead lying back and enjoying the rare opportunity to look at Rodney’s mostly-unclothed body without Rodney being able to catch him. 

It was still sort of a mystery to him why Rodney affected him the way he did, twisted up his insides with mingled affection and frustration and made his body zing with electric awareness whenever he was nearby, but there was no denying it. Well, not anymore. There had been years of denial, but lately, what with Rodney breaking up with Jennifer and DADT being repealed, that denial was crumbling all around him. He took in Rodney’s broad chest, with its smattering of light brown hair, its round pink nipples that had immediately perked up in the chill of the night air, and the slightly soft belly. God, just this one glimpse would give him jerkoff material for weeks. He supposed he should feel ashamed of ogling Rodney and then using it for his spank bank, but he didn’t. It wasn’t like Rodney would ever find out, and John was a firm believer that what Rodney didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Or hurt John, which was frankly the more likely possibility. Rodney had a mean right hook when he was motivated.

Finally Rodney won the battle with his shirt and flung if off, and John schooled his features into a smirk before Rodney turned to look at him. 

“Oh, shut up,” Rodney said, even though John hadn’t said anything. Yet. John smirked wider.

“Wow, that was some vicious attack shirt,” John commented. Rodney rolled his eyes but didn’t respond, which was kind of too bad. He liked getting Rodney all flustered. It was kind of hot to have the power to get Rodney riled up, even if he would have preferred a different kind of riling. But he’d take what he could get. Which, right now, hopefully, was a little body heat sharing. Not cuddling. Definitely not.

Rodney glared at him. “Are you planning on taking up the whole bed for yourself?”

“Yup,” John said, ostentatiously folding his arms behind his head and crossing his ankles.

Rodney grumbled but there was no real heat behind it, he just got in the bed and shoved John to force him to make room. Which had been the point anyway, Rodney’s big hands on his body, though he could have done without the elbow to the ribs. Finally they got settled, lying side by side on their backs, John’s skin tingling with awareness everywhere Rodney had touched him. John turned off the oil lamp next to the bed and they were plunged into near-blackness. Suddenly everything else seemed magnified, the leaves rustling all around them, the murmur of far off voices from some of the other structures, the chill of the wind blowing through the woven branches that made up the walls. John shivered. Damn, it really was cold. Rodney _better_ share body heat with him or he was going to be frozen solid by morning. He opened his mouth to say so, but Rodney spoke before he could. 

“Did you ever have a treehouse as a kid?” Rodney asked, sounding surprisingly wistful. 

“Nah,” John said. “Did you?”

“No way. My parents said they were death traps and anyway we didn’t have any trees in our yard big enough for one. I mean, not that I really wanted one that badly,” Rodney added unconvincingly.

It was strange; they were friends, _best_ friends, even if they’d never said the words out loud, but they hardly ever talked about anything personal. Not their pasts, not their fears or hopes for the future. John didn’t know if he wanted to be that open with anyone, or if he even could, but if he would do it with anyone, it would be Rodney. And there was something about this place, in their own little shelter, high up in the trees, in the dark, that made John feel like anything was possible. 

“I did,” John said. “I wanted one really badly. I mean, it would have been so cool, to have a place to escape to, to get out of the house, somewhere no one could bother me.” He was surprised at how easily the words came.

He could almost _feel_ Rodney processing the words, his brain assimilating the new information into the mental “John Sheppard” file in his head. “That bad, huh?” Rodney said after a few seconds, and his voice was… not sympathetic, exactly, because John would have bristled at sympathy and Rodney knew it. But it was… soft, somehow. Accepting. Distinctly un-Rodney-like, or at least not like the everyday Rodney, pushy and sarcastic and loud. Maybe Rodney felt it too, the atmosphere of hushed possibility around them. Or maybe John was just being ridiculous.

“Sometimes,” was all he said. There was only so much opening up he could do at one time, and he was at his limit for the night. Then he gave an involuntary full-body shiver and his teeth began to chatter. Fuck, it was cold. And he couldn’t just ask Rodney to cuddle up with him. Maybe he hadn’t thought this through.

Rodney, though, as always, was right there with him. “Oh, for god’s sake,” he said, not actually sounding too put out. He rolled over onto his side, facing away from John. “Turn on your side, you can press your back against mine.” Okay, maybe not on the same page after all – he wanted Rodney to spoon him, damn it. Still, he couldn’t complain, so he did as he was told, only swearing a little under his breath. It felt pretty damn good to be pressed up against so much of Rodney, and his back was now toasty warm, but everywhere else was still freezing, the one thin blanket doing nothing to keep the cold wind from stealing his warmth. Now his whole body was starting to shiver.

“Rodneeeeeey,” he whined, the closest he would come to asking.

“That’s what comes of having zero percent body fat,” Rodney said in response, sounding smug. John bit back a retort about Rodney’s body fat percentage – for one thing, Rodney wasn’t fat, and actually he really liked Rodney’s body, the slight softness over the firmness of muscle. Besides, even if he had wanted to tease, it would be shooting himself in the foot if he pissed Rodney off right now.

“Fine, I promise to double my caloric intake starting tomorrow, but that doesn’t help me right now,” he said instead, teeth clacking together loudly, hoping he sounded pathetic enough to guilt Rodney into spooning him.

“Liar,” Rodney said, but it sounded fond, and anyway, he was right. John didn’t really plan to change the way he ate. But he’d accomplished his goal: Rodney rolled over onto his other side so that his torso was up against John’s back, his legs tucked in behind John’s. John immediately relaxed into the waves of warmth coming off of Rodney. Feeling bold, he reached behind himself and grabbed Rodney’s arm, pulling it over himself. Rodney huffed a breath into the back of his neck, but didn’t say anything, just left his arm draped over John.

John thought at first that there was no way he would be able to fall asleep, not with Rodney basically holding him in an embrace. He was practically buzzing with the adrenaline that came from having Rodney so close, feeling every point of contact between their bodies like a brand, enveloped in the distinctive scent that was Rodney after a day’s work: sweat and coffee and something that was just indefinably Rodney but that meant security and acceptance and home. John didn’t even want to fall asleep, he just wanted to enjoy this feeling for as long as he possibly could. He felt Rodney grow lax behind him, Rodney’s breath slipping into the regular pattern of sleep, with just a tiny trace of a whiffle that John should absolutely not find adorable. It relaxed John against his will, and he found himself sinking into slumber. And if he snuggled back a little more firmly into Rodney’s embrace, nobody knew it but him.


End file.
